Tag: donald trump

Trump Flirts with NATO’s Hardliners

Multiple reports in Western news media highlight President Donald Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Financial Times reported that Trump had encouraged Kiev to punish Putin by striking deep inside Russian territory—perhaps even hitting Moscow—if the U.S. provided it with more long-range weapons. (Trump has denied he supports such strikes.)

In marked contrast to the initial weeks of his second term, Trump has now effectively signed on to NATO’s uncompromising strategy of insisting on Russia’s capitulation with respect to the terms of a peace accord between Russia and Ukraine. The Western demands include Russia’s complete withdrawal from conquered Ukrainian territory (including Crimea) and its acquiescence to Kiev’s possibly joining NATO. 

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis expresses the prevailing mentality of hardliners when he contends that sending Ukraine openly offensive weapons might be the most effective way to force Moscow back to the negotiating table.

The ongoing transformation of Trump’s overall approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine has been breathtaking. During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump portrayed the Biden administration’s participation in NATO’s policy of using Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia as an expensive, potentially dangerous blunder. Trump led his political followers to believe that he would terminate the Ukraine entanglement as soon as possible, since it was inconsistent with his overall concept of an “America First” foreign policy. On one occasion, he even boasted that he could bring an end to the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 24 hours. Instead, he has now decided to help rearm Ukraine and even escalate Washington’s support by accelerating shipments of Patriot air defense missiles and other munitions to Kiev.

Trump’s attitude toward Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has undergone a similarly radical transformation. In the initial weeks of his second term, Trump seemed to grasp that improving Washington’s relations with Moscow needed to be a high priority, and that the Ukraine conflict was the principal obstacle to achieving that objective. His rhetoric toward Putin was conciliatory, in marked contrast to the openly hostile and contemptuous attitude of Biden administration officials. At the same time, Trump seemed to regard Zelensky as an arrogant, ungrateful U.S. and NATO client determined to continue pursuing a “wag the dog strategy” toward his Western patrons.

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Top Iranian Cleric Demands Trump’s Execution

Leading Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a sermon in Tehran on Friday.

Khatami accused Trump and Netanyahu of “murdering” tens of thousands of people in Gaza, as well as Iran’s top terrorism coordinator Qasem Soleimani, who was liquidated in Baghdad by a 2020 airstrike ordered by President Trump.

The Iranian regime has commanded its subjects to regard Soleimani as a religious “martyr,” but many Iranians refuse to show the mandatory respect to the slain Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general.

The crowd at Khatami’s sermon, however, seemed to be on the same page as the fire-breathing cleric, chanting “Death to America,” “Death to England,” and “Death to Israel” as he called for Trump and Netanyahu to be executed. “Death to England” is a hardy perennial in Iranian murder chants.

“You are murderers, you need to be punished,” Khatami railed, aiming his diatribe at the American and Israeli leaders and pronouncing them both guilty of capital offenses under Islamic law, including “sowing corruption in the land” and “fighting Allah and his messenger.”

“The ruling regarding Trump and Netanyahu, according to sharia, is that the pair of them should be executed,” he declared.

Last week, a group of senior Shiite clerics in Iran issued fatwas, or religious edicts, condemning both Trump and Netanyahu. The fatwas damned them as moharebs, or warlords who fight against Allah, the same charge Khatami leveled in his sermon calling for their execution. The earlier religious orders said it was a crime for Trump and Netanyahu to discuss targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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HUGE: Trump Orders Release of Sealed Epstein Grand Jury Testimony

In a stunning move Thursday, President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to release sealed grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein—a move that completely blows up the narrative that Democrats have been pushing for weeks now.

The directive comes amid growing bipartisan pressure over the administration’s handling of the Epstein investigation, with critics demanding transparency and accountability—something that was in short supply under the Biden administration.

Trump is making good on his promise to peel back the curtain on what he’s repeatedly called a massive cover-up to protect the powerful. 

“Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!”

The release of grand jury records could mark a turning point in the long-stalled Epstein saga—and deliver a political earthquake that many in the establishment hoped would never come.

Many Trump supporters have demanded full transparency after the FBI and Justice Department released what they claimed was the final word on Jeffrey Epstein—insisting that there’s no client list and that Epstein’s 2019 jailhouse death was a simple suicide. Unsurprisingly, the so-called “final statement” only fueled more skepticism, especially among conservatives who have long suspected a cover-up to protect politically connected elites—many of them Democrats—and Democrats pounced on the GOP infighting.

Epstein moved in powerful circles that included Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and a host of other celebrities and billionaires. But while the media fixates on Trump, they continue to downplay or outright ignore Epstein’s well-documented ties to Clinton and other high-profile Democrats. Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell sits in prison, convicted of trafficking minors to—well, no one, according to the official narrative.

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Karoline Leavitt Says President Trump “Would Not Recommend a Special Prosecutor in the Epstein Case”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday denied reports that President Trump was considering appointing a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. 

This follows a report by John Solomon that President Trump was “on board” with a Special Prosecutor for the Epstein Case after Pam Bondi’s back-and-forth, claiming that she has the files to release, and then not releasing them.

President Trump, however, has defended Bondi repeatedly, even calling Republicans “stupid” and “foolish” for wanting the Epstein files so badly.

“I was surprised, but they got duped,” he said of Republicans who aren’t satisfied with Bondi’s nothingburger of a release and claims that Epstein killed himself.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are introducing legislation to release all of the files.

Karoline Leavitt was further asked about President Trump’s reaction to House Speaker Mike Johnson calling for additional Epstein files to be released, but she declined to comment.

“I won’t discuss the President’s private conversations with the Speaker of the House,” Leavitt said.

“the President has said, if the attorney general and the Department of Justice and the FBI have any more credible evidence in regards to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, they should put that forward.”

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CBS News Hack Claims PTSD, Says Trump Supporters Were About To “Kill” Media After Assassination Attempt

A CBS News reporter has claimed that he has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from the attempt to assassinate President Trump in Butler, Pa. Last year.

Scott MacFarlane says he received a diagnosis in the immediate aftermath of the July 13, 2024 shooting, not because of the act of violence against Trump, but because he believes Trump supporters were about to violently pounce on all the reporters covering the event and murder them.

Yes, he is seriously claiming this.

Speaking to Chuck Todd, another former legacy media propagandist who now “Toddcasts” from his living room, MacFarlane said that had Trump not got to his feet and punched the air, the crowd would have gone feral and started to murder journalists.

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Trump Believes Russia Will Win In Ukraine, It’s Just A Matter Of How Long

“The president’s view is Russia is going to win, it’s a matter of how long it takes,” said a senior, unnamed White House official to Politico this week, reflecting on President Trump’s view on where the war stands.

“Russia has the bigger economy, has the bigger military, has more than enough bodies to throw into the meat grinder, and just doesn’t care. And although they are making slow progress, they are still making progress,” the official added. “The president just wants to stop the killing.”

Indeed the last several weeks have seen clear Russian gains on the ground in Eastern Ukraine, with a steady flow of reports of towns, settlements, and villages being newly captured in Donetsk and elsewhere.

There’s been some confusion over Trump’s policy in arming Kiev. He has gone further than he ever has before in approving new anti-air defense systems, but still appears to be ruling out long-range offensive weapons, amid conflicting reports.

Has realism finally set in concerning Washington policy? It should have been evident from the start of this horrific ‘war of attrition’ that Ukraine was never going to win.

Still, Zelensky has resisted doing the one thing which could end the war – make territorial concessions. He hasn’t so much as offered to give up Crimea.

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Trump signs bill cracking down on fentanyl, strengthening drug penalties

President Donald Trump has signed legislation designed to strengthen penalties for offenses involving fentanyl and its related analogs.

At a White House ceremony, Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act alongside politicians and families whose loved ones have since perished as a result of fentanyl.

Trump described the bill signing as a “historic step toward justice for every family touched by the fentanyl scourge as we signed the HALT Fentanyl Act into law.”

“We’ll be getting the drug dealers, pushers, and peddlers off our street, and we will not rest until we have ended the drug overdose epidemic,” Trump said. “And it’s been getting a little bit better, but it’s horrible.”

The Act targets unauthorized fentanyl analogs, not the FDA-approved fentanyl used in hospitals for anesthesia and pain management. That medical-grade fentanyl remains classified as Schedule II, meaning it’s highly regulated but still legal for medical use. The reclassification simply closes loopholes that previously allowed underground chemists to tweak fentanyl’s molecular structure and evade federal law.

“The bill also makes several other changes to registration requirements for conducting research with controlled substances, including:

  • Permitting a single registration for related research sites in certain circumstances,
  • Waiving the requirement for a new inspection in certain situations, and
  • Allowing a registered researcher to perform certain manufacturing activities with small quantities of a substance without obtaining a manufacturing registration,” the legislation’s webpage states.

The legislation, which received bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, permanently places all fentanyl-related substances, including synthetic variants of the opioid, on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The bill also offers law enforcement more ability to combat the spread of the substance and imposes harsher punishments for anybody convicted of possessing or distributing it.

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Trump Clarifies No Long-Range Missiles To Ukraine, Declares “I’m On Nobody’s Side”

Only this week are further contents of a July 4 phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky being revealed, but it comes amid accusations of fake news and taking statements out of context.

“Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? … Can you hit St Petersburg too?” – that’s reportedly what Trump posed to the Ukrianian leader in their July 4th call, which came the day following the president had a disappointing call Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky responded: “Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons.” All of this is according to a report in Financial Times, which the White House is now pushing back against. The FT presented the exchange as indicative of a new US approach of quietly encouraging Ukraine’s military to strike Moscow and other targets deeper inside Russia.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the FT’s framing of the call was misleading and without proper context. “The Financial Times is notorious for taking words wildly out of context to get clicks because their paper is dying,” she has stated.

Trump sought to clarify in remarks to reporters on Tuesday that Zelensky “shouldn’t target Moscow” and proclaimed in interesting and ironic remarks that he’s “on nobody’s side” – but that simply he wants the killing to stop.

The major announcement which had been planned for Monday did not include any new package of offensive long-range missiles (that the public knowns about at least).

“President Trump was merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing. He’s working tirelessly to stop the killing and end this war,”  Leavitt has added.

All of this helped paint a picture of Trump doing a complete 180 on Ukraine policy. To some extent he has – given he has continued sending Kiev arms packages, albeit ‘defensive’ in nature, supposedly. More anti-air defenses have been approved, despite that America’s own stockpiles are being depleted.

But clearly the White House is somewhat feeling the sting of pushback and angry criticism from among the Right and Trump’s base.

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Trump’s DOJ Says EPA Will Appeal Landmark Fluoride Ruling – Working For Corporations Instead Of The People?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to appeal a decision last year by a federal court ordering the agency to address the risks of water fluoridation, according to Michael Connett, lead attorney for plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“Rather than use the court’s decision as an opportunity to finally end water fluoridation (as most of Europe has already done), the EPA will spend its time legally challenging the court’s order,” Connett wrote in a post on X.

The American Chemistry Council, a trade organization representing the chemical industry, and the American Fluoridation Society, a fluoridation advocacy organization that touts its work undermining local efforts to oppose water fluoridation, filed motions seeking to submit amicus briefs supporting the EPA appeal, he said.

Connett told The Defender that the American Dental Association also plans to file a brief.

The EPA said it will file the appeal on July 18, after which the case will go to a three-judge panel in the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The appeals court will receive briefs from both sides, along with any amicus briefs, and hear oral arguments before issuing its decision.

The Fluoride Action Network (FAN), one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the EPA, said on X that the appeal was “a very disappointing move by EPA.” “A few months ago, @epaleezeldin went on a public speaking tour with @SecKennedy to address why fluoride needs to come OUT of the water. Now the EPA will appeal to keep fluoride IN drinking water.”

Connett noted that the decision to appeal came from the solicitor general at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), who reports to Pam Bondi and the White House, not by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has vocally opposed water fluoridation, but lacks the authority to end it.

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Here’s How Trump Was Manipulated Into Mission Creep

Zelensky, anti-Russian US hawks, Melania, and the Mainstream Media each exploited in their own way his false expectation that Putin would agree to a ceasefire-partnership deal.

Many are struggling to make sense of Trump’s decision to clumsily thread the needle between radically escalating US involvement in the Ukrainian Conflict and walking away from it. The preceding hyperlinked analysis concluded that he was manipulated into this by his advisors, who exploited his false expectation that Putin would agree to a ceasefire that doesn’t resolve the root security-related causes of the conflict in exchange for a resource-centric strategic partnership. This observation will now be elaborated upon.

Trump campaigned on the promise of ending the Ukrainian Conflict “on day one”, which he later admitted was an “exaggeration”. He claimed that his friendship with Putin and keen dealmaking skills would easily bring this about. In pursuit of that end, Trump tried sweet-talking Putin by blaming the conflict on Biden and Zelensky, lending credence to Russia’s claims that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations posed a threat to its security, and promising that “Crimea will stay with Russia” once the conflict ends.

To further sweeten his proposal for an unconditional ceasefire that would essentially freeze the conflict along the Line of Contact, Trump also suggested a resource-centric strategic partnership with Russia. For his part, Putin suggested the same, albeit with the intent of encouraging Trump to coerce Zelensky into Russia’s demanded concessions for peace. Nothing was ultimately achieved due to the resultant deadlock, which Trump apparently took personally, thus making him susceptible to manipulation.

After spring’s US-Ukrainian minerals deal was signed, Zelensky began more loudly talking about his earlier interest in an unconditional ceasefire, which influenced Trump into thinking that Putin is the only obstacle to peace due to the ceasefire conditions that the Russian leader demanded in June 2024. Trump had already speculated that Putin is “tapping [him] along” so Zelensky’s rhetorical reversal from pledging to fight till Russia’s strategic defeat to calling for an unconditional ceasefire was timely and strategic.

It wasn’t just Zelensky whispering in Trump’s ear that Putin was playing him but also anti-Russian hawks like Lindsey Graham and even his own wife Melania, who Trump revealed on Monday would challenge his claim of “wonderful” calls with Putin by pointing out that Russia was still bombing Ukraine. In parallel with this, the Mainstream Media claimed that Putin was “humiliating” Trump, which aimed to take advantage of his pride and desire for praise from his critics alike to push him into mission creep.

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